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We have collected 17 reviews of the Medal of Honor. Experts rate Medal of Honor 7.1/10. Reviewsor.com helps you find reviews, best prices, user reviews of the Medal of Honor and Xbox 360 games.
Picture the scene: You're creeping through an Afghan wadi, covering your squad mates' approach with suppressive fire on an enemy machine gun encampment. Dust is being kicked up by running and bullets, and the piecing glare of the red-hot sun is so bright it makes looking far into the horizon impossible. You're a long way from home, soldier, and the emotional toll must surely be immense. As you zero your sights on another distant bogey you gently squeeze the trigger before being greeted by a big ol' headshot notification icon popping up at the bottom of the screen. This is war.Medal of Hono(u)r enters the crowded shooter market with lofty ambitions: it wants to realistically present the current conflict raging in Afghanistan, and in doing so it has become the most controversial game of 2010. But developer Danger Close's contentious desires are often hindered by Medal of Honor having to concurrently act as a video game, and it's in this back-and-forth between tone and game that the whole product suffers its biggest blow.What you need to understand about the new Medal of Honor, you see, is that many of its core events play out like its contemporaries.
On mission in the rugged mountains surrounding the Shahikot Valley, Tier 1 Operators Dusty (he of the ZZ Top beard) and Deuce get word from the eye in the sky that another four-man Tier 1 team -- led by a paternal soldier with the apt call sign of Mother -- is being pursued by a swarming mass of Taliban and Al-Qaeda soldiers. Having been there and done that in all things video game, I rolled my eyes in anticipation of some rendition of the stock line, "Come on, we've got to go help those guys before it's too late!" Instead, Dusty calmly says in his whiskey and cigarettes voice, "Wouldn't want to be those guys chasing Mother and his boys. Those boys know how to bring the hate." It's a line that exemplifies the authentic, often-sardonic dialogue in Electronic Arts' much-talked-about Medal of Honor reboot. It's also a synopsis of the game: Playing as a Tier 1 Operator in the single-player campaign, you're heavily outnumbered on foreign soil, but it's the bad guys who are screwed. If EA conveys one thing here, it's that America's real-life Tier 1 Operators carry wallets that say "Bad Motherf***er" on them, and when MoH is at its best, bringing the hate is a blast. Dusty, the cover boy and most memorable character in the Medal of Honor campaign.
In the crowded first-person shooter market, it's important for a game to carve out a niche--do something better than or different from its competitors. Medal of Honor tries to do just that by representing a real conflict that is really happening in a real country between two real opposing forces. From the chatter among the soldiers and the authentic weapons to the environmental continuity, there are many elements that enliven the campaign with an invigorating sense of realism. Unfortunately, this energy is diminished somewhat by a bunch of video game-y elements, like invisible walls, invincible allies, and an incongruous icon that pops up whenever you get a headshot. The campaign finds a reasonable balance between realism and escapism, where it manages to provide a fairly engrossing experience despite its flaws. The online multiplayer offers many thrills of its own, and the adherence to realism makes for battlefields where the only thing between you and a swift death is your gun and your reflexes. Both the single-player and multiplayer components provide some robust entertainment, and though flaws and limitations keep it from being all it can be, Medal of Honor still distinguishes itself on the field of first-person battle.
In Medal of Honor, brotherhood is an unspoken bond of trust and companionship through acts of honor where failing to leave a soldier behind isn't an option and risking one's life for the fate of another is common. The idea of brotherhood created Medal of Honor's storyline, and it is the best storyline I have ever played in a tactical FPS thus far. Just like any FPS fan, I too become overly ecstatic about this genre: I can talk hours upon hours about it, give you my critical opinions down to exquisite detail, and discuss creative and strategic ways to deceive opponents online. And so, I wasn't expecting much out of Medal of Honor considering how popular titles like Modern Warfare 2 have already set a nearly untouchable standard for the FPS genre, and I couldn't foresee any title that was able to compete with that. However, none have captured a story which is deep enough to really connect the player to the game's storyline... until now. Although incredibly short, MoH's campaign is done well and that's an understatement. You play three different roles: Rabbit and Deuce, who are Tier 1 operatives, and Dante Adams, who is an Army Ranger.
EA took a chance with the latest installment of Medal of Honor, moving the series from its World War II origins to a contemporary setting. It's no secret that the franchise has lost its way over the years, and it has the declining review scores to show for it. Those who pinned their hopes on the change in venue fixing the problems are likely to be disappointed by the results. The single-player campaign isn't bad, but it hardly feels inspired. If you've played any of the modern-day military shooters, you've experienced most of Medal of Honor's set pieces – a helicopter-based rail shooter segment, a section where you paint targets for air support, and other levels where you and your bearded buddy sneak through camps as snipers. Medal of Honor's campaign lacks the excitement that would help it stand tall against the considerable competition. Character animations are gimpy, weapons feel slightly underpowered, and the AI is downright suicidal. This works to your advantage when enemies show a complete disregard for cover, rolling out of safety to stake out firing positions in the open. The story is standard fare, with players taking on a variety of raids and infiltration missions throughout Afghanistan.
GamePro
10/2010
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EA’s reboot of its popular war franchise brings the action to a familiar battleground, one where technology and specialization are the order of the day. While it treads the same path forged by Modern Warfare, it offers enough to be a potential challenger to Call of Duty's dominance down the line. It doesn't win the war but it definitely has enough to carry its own in what should be a protracted battle. It’s difficult—maybe the better word here is impossible—to talk about the new Medal of Honor without mentioning the Modern Warfare series. Producer Greg Goodrich did an admirable job of it at a recent press event, referring to the game’s depiction of “today’s war” and “today’s soldiers,” but that bit of coy synonymical manipulation doesn’t hide the fact that Medal of Honor is trying to conquer territory Activision has already planted its flag in. The good news is this marks the return of an old superpower for what I hope is a long and protracted battle between the two publishers, if only because competition breeds innovation, and I don’t want the modern war setting to become as stale as the battlefields of World War II.
Major game publishers still seem unwilling to fully tackle the events, interpretations, and consequences of America's most recent set of military conflicts, but while EA bowed to mounting pressure and removed the word "Taliban" from Medal of Honor's multiplayer suite, the terminology remains an integral part of the campaign, which bears a more realistic tone than most other modern shooters. Unlike the ill-defined locations and allegiances in some other genre entries, Medal of Honor's intense firefights take place in Afghani cities you've likely heard of, and indeed, your battle is waged against the clearly-indicated Taliban. With that in mind, I hoped the game would cash in that bold opportunity to bring some gravitas to the situation, and make players examine the controversial post-9/11 war from conflicting perspectives -- or hell, even feel uncomfortable shooting Taliban soldiers. But aside from some heartfelt (but ultimately peripheral) notes about the game's dedication to our country's fallen soldiers, Medal of Honor rarely rises above the "ooh-rah, kill the 'bad guys'" approach seen in most other modern military campaigns. It's a missed opportunity, no doubt, but not one that will kill or even derail the experience for many shooter fans.
I didn't like the Medal of Hono(u)r beta - but that's okay, according to DICE, as it was intended to be an actual beta. Not these fancy 'betas as marketing gimmicks' that are commonplace nowadays (although it was used as a marketing gimmick) but an actual, honest-to-goodness beta with warts and all, such as serious problems that needed fixing â?? like the way it kept crashing my PS3, for instance â?? and really dodgy balancing.So, it's been a few months and the game's due out in a couple of weeks. What's changed? Loads of stuff, actually. Some of the most noticeable changes include the overhauled HUD, the recoil of the weapons and the killstreaks, which are now far harder to obtain. That might not sound like much in an industry obsessed with making up 'revolutionary' new features to plonk on the back of boxes, but take the game for a spin online and it's clear that these tweaks have had a massive impact.That being said, my only opportunity to test out the multiplayer component of the game â?? this is the bit being made by DICE with the Frostbite engine, as opposed to Danger Close's single-player campaign â?? was over the course of an afternoon a few weeks ago.
Development duties for the multiplayer component of Medal of Honor have been given to DICE, the studio behind Battlefield: Bad Company 2. With the success of that game's squad-based multiplayer offering, it's easy to see why. Making a dent in the military first-person shooter market--a market where the all-conquering Call of Duty franchise looms large--is no mean feat. If anyone is up to the task, it might be Stockholm-based, EA-owned DICE. Medal of Honor's multiplayer action has been built with a tweaked version of DICE's Frostbite engine--the engine that powered Bad Company 2. Much of that tweaking has been done since the multiplayer modes were offered up for testing in beta form back in June and July. The early beta gave more time for feedback and fixes, according to Patrick Liu, the game's multiplayer producer. "We didn't really have time to do that in Battlefield: Bad Company 2," he says. Feedback from the beta has given rise to "thousands of fixes," says Liu, ranging from a boost to the recoil of weapons to more consistent hit detection. Support actions earned with kill streaks have been balanced, making them harder to achieve than in the beta.
When I finally get to play Medal of Honor's single-player for myself (starting with a Ranger mission in the middle of the campaign called "Belly of the Beast"), the first thing I see is a bunch of soldiers looking out at a group of Chinook helicopters heading to Afghanistan. This stands out because it's actually a modern day version of the opening scene from Medal of Honor: Allied Assault (which itself cribbed from the opening of Saving Private Ryan), in which the player is aboard a boat and looks out over the horizon to see all the other landing craft bearing their way to the beaches of Normandy. This modernization of D-Day continues onward, with lots of soldier banter and, when they step out of Chinooks, they get pounded by RPGs and assault-rifle fire the same way the Germans pounded the boats with machine guns. After the same initial shock of in-your-face combat, you (as Ranger Dante Adams) have to rally with the rest of your squad across a chaotic battlefield. It's not just the situation of "guys in transports getting smacked and then dealing with hostiles" that's the same in Medal of Honor.
In previous looks at Medal of Honor single-player missions, we’ve seen quite a bit of the slower, more methodical gameplay meant to represent the Tier 1 element of the United States military--the guys who are sent in for precision strikes on high-value targets within Afghanistan. But at Gamescom 2010, we got a look at a different side of military options within the Medal of Honor universe--the so-called sledgehammer that takes the form of an Apache helicopter. Inside this instrument of war, you’re a gunner, taking out various ground targets as you patrol the skies of Afghanistan, or more specifically the Shah-I-Kot Valley region--the scene of some intense fighting in the Afghan war. Essentially, the first part of the mission functions as a tutorial, giving you a chance to familiarize yourself with the Apache’s weapon system. In addition to guns, you have front firing missiles as well as hellfire missiles that track specific targets when promoted to launch them--you’ll see a box around a target indicating the use of these missiles. And despite being the gunner, you have to be aware that the front firing missiles do exactly that---just because you’re facing west, firing the cannons that doesn’t mean your missiles fire in that direction as well.
Ryan Scott, Executive Editor: You saw EA's Medal of Honor reboot recently. How's it looking? MoH has kinda been overshadowed by Call of Duty for a while now. Will Tuttle, Editor in Chief: That's a bit of an understatement, as the success of Activision's CoD must sting EA, the company that created the genre I like to call "wicked intense first-person war shooters" with the original Medal of Honor. I mean, it's not that the last entry, Medal of Honor: Airborne, was an awful game; it just wasn't very good when compared to the other shooters on the market. Most of the blame for the drop in quality from the early MoH games (people tend to forget how awesome the first couple were) to the recent entries falls squarely on the shoulders of the former EA executive regime. They thought it made more sense to churn out a new game every 12 or 18 months than to give the development team a breather and allow them to focus on making something more than "just another shooter." Thankfully, EA abandoned that thinking recently, and this is one of the franchises that's benefitted immensely. Ryan Scott: It sure seems like they're going for a grittier look and feel this time out.
Every time Medal of Honor has been shown, it's always focused on the single-player. All we ever hear about multiplayer is that DICE is developing that while EA LA focuses on the single-player. Finally, for E3, EA is showing off exactly what happens when you have the crew behind Battlefield play in the Medal of Honor sandbox. There will be multiple multiplayer modes, but for now, the team showed off some Team Assault (a.k.a. Team Deathmatch) and Combat Mission. The former, demonstrated on a map called "Kabul Ruins," is what you can expect: heavy on twitch skills. The latter is similar to Battlefield: Bad Company 2's Rush mode, where one team progresses through a series of objectives on offense while the opposing team just works defense. The key difference is that there's a bit more narrative and variety within the match; instead of just blowing up buildings like in Rush, the Combat Mission map being demoed (called "Helmand Valley") focuses on Rangers escorting a tank throughout a valley, and doing stuff such as destroying roadblocks or securing antiaircraft guns. Medal of Honor uses a tweaked version of Bad Company 2's Frostbite engine -- tweaks include refining the hit detection and even making the bullets faster.
If that bearded hobo bloke - the Tier 1 Operator EA is using in its marketing for upcoming Afghanistan shoot fest Medal of Honor - represents the scalpel, the US Army Ranger represents the sledgehammer. They are the ground pounders, the overwhelming force - what you would expect to see from big military. It is the Army Rangers that executive producer Greg Goodrich is here at EA's spring showcase to demo.The demo is taken from a Ranger level set in March 2002. It begins with a cinematic - the Leave a Message trailer EA put out last week to debut the "tough as nails" US military force. Go on. Have a gander. It's pretty good.The Rangers engage the enemy in the Shah-i-Kot Valley, but get pinned down by an enemy DShK heavy machine gun. A fire team of six Rangers then volunteers to head into a village to find the machine gun and destroy it. You are one of these rangers, and this is where we pick up the action.The first thing you notice is how authentic the environment looks. The Shah-i-Kot Valley is a vast place. Dusty mountain passes lead the Rangers along a meandering path through the rugged, harsh terrain. The Rangers bark echoing orders at each other. During quieter moments you can hear the wind whistling through the valley.
In a crowded marketplace of modern military shooters, Medal of Honor needs to bring it--something that's not lost on executive producer Greg Goodrich. "In this genre, you have to show up with quality--if you don't, there's just no point showing up," he says. Goodrich was in London to show off the latest build of the game and give us a taste of that quality, demonstrating a section of gameplay where US Army Rangers took on the Taliban in the mountains. Comment on this videoWatch this video in High Def The demo began with the Rangers--whom Goodrich referred to as a "sledgehammer" team of operatives--arriving in the mountain range. The section is a nod to the Normandy landings in the original Medal of Honor according to the developer, except this time the US is taking on a modern threat in the form of the Taliban. The location in the game, the real-life Shahi-Kot Valley, is a place historically used by Afghan guerrillas hiding from foreign invaders. As part of the four-man fire team, you control Specialist Dante Adams, who enters the battlefield wielding both a machine gun and a shotgun. You arrive at a small settlement during daytime and proceed to search the houses while taking out any stray enemies. You can slide along the ground and into cover, but stone walls break apart with gunfire, so you need to keep moving.
The last time I saw the upcoming reboot of Medal of Honor, it was a demo that showed a very different sort of Medal of Honor. The series has traditionally taken a very reverent look at WWII action, a sort of Saving Private Ryan by way of gamepad instead of film. But the last title started to veer away from that, with bizarre soldiers that look more like something you'd see in Wolfenstein rather than MOH. And a modern-era Medal of Honor where you play as sneaky, Tier 1 Operators (aka "best of the best" Special Forces guys) that slink around with silenced weapons and hi-tech gear to take out enemies without announcing their presence also seems, well, not very Medal of Honor. But the Tier 1 Operator stuff is only part of the gameplay, the one that EA LA personnel like to describe as "playing the scalpel." As a counter-point, the developers note that the player will also get to "play the sledgehammer" by controlling a member of the U.S. Army Rangers -- often in a mission that is complementary to the one that the player just finished as a Tier 1 Operator. So you might play a mission working your way to plant a tracer onto some trucks to see where they go, and as the Ranger, your mission is to then approach that truck's destination, and hit it with everything you got.
No-one really knows the precise recipe that guarantees a successful first person shooter. However, one new theory, based on literally minutes of painstaking consideration by yours truly, suggests that the following ingredients may be helpful: a three word title, under the format "X of Y"; a hideously competitive multiplayer mode; a near-contemporary Western military theme; and, most important of all, at least one character with a beard.EA's new Medal of Honor has already nailed this last element, even though the game won't be out for months yet. The front cover boasts a hard-as-nails-but-still-quite-cool-looking chap, replete with a massive trampy beard and a whopping great machine gun. He's also sporting sunglasses AND a baseball cap, the latter worn backwards in the manner of an early '90s rap artist. It's a terrifying combination: he looks like some form of CIA hiphop busker, a man who could kill you in 48 different ways if you refuse to buy his last Big Issue.Thankfully, this isn't all that MoH also has going for it. If we return to my hastily-assembled checklist, it's clear that EA LA is scoring high on all fronts: the title is a natural fit, obviously, while the multiplayer side of things is being handled by Battlefield developer DICE.
| Retailer | Information | Prices | |
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Medal Of Honor (xbox 360, 2010) U.s. Version Ntsc | $12.95 | See it |
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Medal Of Honor (xbox 360, 2010) Xbox 360 | $18.95 | See it |
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Medal of Honor | $18.99 | See it |
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Medal Of Honor, Moh, Xbox 360. Ntsc, & Sealed | $19.86 | See it |
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Medal of Honor - Xbox 360 | $19.95 | See it |
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Medal of Honor™ for Xbox 360® | $19.99 | See it |
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